Is Depression a Lifetime Condition?
TLDR; Does depression ever go away or is this what life is going to always be like? Are some people always going to be depressed?
I've been struggling with feelings of sadness and self-anger since I was a child. I grew in a repressive religious household and experienced physical and sexual abuse from my family as a very young child. Suicide ideation and botched attempts started when I was about 10. I began small acts of self-harm in high-school but it went away once I was finally away from home and in college. I ended up getting depressed in my last year of college and due to a rare health condition that halted my studies and had to stay an extra year to make up for all the courses that I failed. I started going to therapy at this time to help work through all of my repressed feelings and experiences from childhood.
I continued going to therapy and I was diagnosed with Dysthymia in my early twenties. I was diagnosed with major depression in my late-20's after I going through a difficult breakup where I'd began self-harming again towards the end of the relationship.
I've been taking medication since my Dsythmia diagnosis, but it's frustrating to see my depression hang on as I get older. I feel like I'm in a much better place now than I have ever been, but I feel like my brain will always be in depressed mode.
I wonder if depression is just what being an adult feels like. I also wonder if there people out there that are genuinely happy and fulfilled and I'm just a perma-sad weirdo. Is this just me now..and forever?
The impression I get from speaking to therapists about this is that depression really does go away if you have the right kind of therapy. But many therapists don't have the skills to do this, and all they can do is help you to "work through" stuff from your past, which doesn't really get you anywhere. That focus on past difficulties could even make things worse.
What I've read recently about "antidepressant" medication seems to suggest that it's not much use in the long term for most people. It seems to be useful in the short term for some people, but dangerous for others.
Unfortunately I don't know a simple way to find a highly skilled therapist. Only one professional body that I know of currently evaluates therapists' clinical competence with real clients, and that's the Academy of Cognitive Therapy. Talking to one of their certified therapists could perhaps be a useful starting point for understanding how treatable your depression is.
@scarletLime4315
I think at least some types of depression last a lifetime. I have been depressed since I was a little kid, I am old now and the depression has left from time to time, but always come back. Nowadays, my life is incredibly good; I have everything I need and want, and yet today I am depressed. No reason, just the blues.
I hope your life improves, and doesn't take too long to do it. Health issues can drag you down, or put you in denial. It is hard, life is hard, but there are occasional rewards for it. May you be rewarded and loved.